


Ileʃí Vignettes

by Crane_Among_Celandines



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gender Identity, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 21:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19303852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crane_Among_Celandines/pseuds/Crane_Among_Celandines
Summary: A place to put short fiction written for background on the Ileʃí setting.





	Ileʃí Vignettes

# Sharp-Edged Mirrors

 

Aduet loved me, I knew þí did. Of course I knew that, þí said it every evening. Þí said it like a charm to ward off ill-luck, like a prayer which had a silent second verse; “I love you, please let that be enough.” And every morning when I woke beside þín, and I saw that love in þír eyes, it cut me to the bone because I knew the person þí loved didn't exist.

 

Sometimes I'd visit the market, and I'd watch ʃuáma shopping and laughing together, all bright cloth and glitter, and my heart would be a lump like frost-cold stone with the _wanting_ of it. I'd close my eyes and picture myself among them, my head bare and my face painted, and the easy warmth of companionship all about me. And I’d look at the merchants selling clothes and see the pale trousers and the vividly patterned tunics, and I’d think: I could wear those. There’s no _rule_.

 

But it would feel like a confession.

 

So I’d do my shopping, and people would greet me quietly and without touching, as they thought I wished, and every soft “Good morning óþém!” stung like nettles, and the urge to say ‘óþuém’ would rise in my throat like bile. And I’d go to a café and order peppered dumplings, and see the seller’s eyes flicker as þué repressed the urge to comment. Þué had said once, how rare it was to see a ʃám who liked spicy things, and I had blushed and stuttered something, and þué apologised and went away and I couldn’t tell þuén not to.

 

Then I'd go home to our little cottage, following the sound of the forge-hammer and the smell of fresh-baked bread down the road, and Aduet would come out to greet me with smut upon þír brow and take me in þír arms and say, “How was the walk?” and almost, _almost_ it would be enough. And I’d go up to my workroom where the sun made mottled gold of the walls, and the closed door behind me felt as though it was barred by what was _expected_ of me.

 

I’d sit and drill beads or polish stones or weave cords, and tell myself: “I’m ʃám, I have to be. I’ve always been. I don’t really want to be ʃuám, to be þuém instead of þém.” Try to convince myself that all I wanted was to wear bright clothes and eat hot peppers and embrace in public. That what I really desired was _attention_ , that it was just a perverse fascination with ʃuámín things. Like paint on rotting wood, I layered excuses one atop another so I didn’t have to see myself. Aduet could tell, of course. We joke about ʃím being blind to feelings, but that’s nonsense. Þí had been my partner for twelve years, þí couldn’t possibly miss my pain, and it gnawed at þín. But þí couldn’t guess its cause, and I couldn’t tell þín, because the thought of speaking those words was like holding my hand by the forge and reaching for the glowing steel.

 

So I was silent. Day after day, month after month, until the ache of it was almost all there was to me. And there at our table one evening while the rain drummed on the roof, the pain of speaking and the pain of silence reached an awful equilibrium, and I said to þín, “Aduet, I’m þuém.” My eyes filled with tears and my voice broke. “I’m sorry,” I said, and þí came around the table so quickly to reach me that þí knocked þír chair over and barked þír shin bloody.

“Oh! Oh, Sesálí, how long?” þí said. Þí held me tight, stroking my spine gently. “All this time?”

“I’m sorry, Aduet,” I said again into þír shoulder.

“Sesálí, my precious fool,” þí murmured by my ear. “Don’t say that. Unless…” Þí pulled away a little to look me in the eyes, and I saw þír own were glistening. “Do you want to leave me? To be with another ʃuám?” Þír voice cracked. “I… wanted to be what you needed.”

I shook my head vehemently. “No!” I cried. “I don’t want another partner. I’m happy when I’m with you, I always am, but I can’t be þém any more, not even for you.”

“Sesálí, I didn’t _ask_ that of you,” þí said, anguished. “If you say you’re þuém, if you need to… It doesn’t _matter_ to me what you are, I’ll love you just the same, you’re my _partner_. But I-” Þí cut þírself off and started again. “I’m only afraid that if you change you won’t love me anymore.”

“Not ever,” I said wetly. And then we were both crying, cut open by sincerity.

 

It isn't all that easy, of course. Aduet gets jealous, sometimes, of the time I spent with other ʃuám. My colleagues, working together in the great hall beside the river. The stargazers, who take me onto the lake at night to watch the meteors lying on our backs in the boat. The dumpling-seller, who was the first other person to call me óþuém. Þí doesn't think my bright clothes suit me, and þí complains about the paint I wear smudging on our sheets. But truly, þí does love me, and I find I love þín all the more now it no longer feels like a weight upon my shoulders.

 

And now I'll call to Aduet, “I'm going out,” and þí will come out of the forge with ash on þír nose and kiss me on the brow and say, “I love you,” that prayer with its unspoken second verse: “no matter how you change.”

 


End file.
